PP 038: Mindset, Meditation and Marketing with Marlo Ellis

Marlo and I discuss mindset, meditation and marketing, and the importance of aligning all three.

Connect with Marlo Ellis

Resources Mentioned

Episode Transcription

KIM: Hey everybody, welcome back to another episode of Positive Productivity. Today, I am thrilled to have Marlo Ellis, Freedom Coach for women and public speaker. And Marlo is the Founder of The Feminine Badass Society and a Master of Feminine Badassery. Welcome, Marlo!

**Please note: Since we recorded this episode, Marlo has become the Founder of The Uncommon Woman.

MARLO ELLIS: Thank you so much, Kim. It’s awesome to be here.

KIM: Oh, it’s awesome to have you. And I have to admit – I’m a little bit excited that I can put the “E” next to this episode on iTunes. Because that doesn’t happen very often!

MARLO: That’s awesome. Good!

KIM: Well, can you share exactly what “feminine badassery” is with the audience?

MARLO ELLIS: Absolutely. It’s so funny – I get so many people saying, “I need more feminine badass in my life!” And they say, “What is that?”

So really, what “feminine badassery” is, is a combination of our feminine side – our divine, feminine side, which encompasses love, and light, and compassion, and nurturing, and all of those things that women are really incredible at – some of the gifts that we are given as women. But then also, combining that with being a badass – which is really kind of blasting forth into what you want, living the life of your dreams, saying “yes” when you mean “yes” and “no” when you mean “no”, and really just owning it like a badass woman.

And I often – when I when I try to describe what a feminine badass is to something, I’ll say, “She is soft with a side of sassy.” So it’s that really successful woman – whatever successful might mean to every person, individually – that is everything that encompasses what they see a woman as, right?

KIM: Oh, I love that – “soft with side of sassy.” Is that what you just said?

MARLO: Yeah!

KIM: Oh, that’s fabulous. And I think this is a trend of my week this week: “yes” when you mean “yes”, and “no” when you mean “no”. Because I know I’m not alone with having that problem.

MARLO ELLIS: Oh gosh, no. And so – so many women, especially women as they’re moving into a role of being an entrepreneur, or just being a little bit more independent – that’s really something that you have to get good at. You have to become a master of that if you want to live the life that you intend to live. If you want to live the life that somebody else intends you to live, then of course, we say “yes we mean we “no”, and “no” when we mean the “yes”, and all of that. So that’s a really big piece of the puzzle. Yeah.

KIM: I was having a call with my own coach yesterday morning – and I hate to admit this – but I realized that I’m sometimes more of a “beck and call girl”. I try to – I’m over-eager to please, and so I’m constantly saying “yes”. And when they want to know when something can be done, I’m like, “Oh, today,” or, “Tomorrow” – and not really thinking about it. So I wind up with a whole bunch on my on my “today” plate, and then I get stressed.

MARLO ELLIS: Right, exactly. Well, it’s a very common problem – and I think that a part of the problem is that people just don’t know how to say “no” properly. And so what I do is I really share with women healthy ways that they can say “no” in a loving way.

So for example, if somebody asks you to do something that you really don’t have time to do, you can say, “You know what? That is something that I would be – I would love to help you with that. But you know what? My plate is full, and I really want to deliver my best in everything that I do. So I’m going to have to say ‘no’, but I want to invite you the next time that this opportunity arises to let me know. Because I would love to help you in the future when I’m not so busy.” Or, “Can I? Is it okay with you if I contact you when I have some open time so that I can step in and help you? Because that’s what I do. That’s the kind of person that I am.” Or, “That’s the work that I do – I serve other people.”

And when you when you give somebody an answer like that, it’s not a “no”. It’s a “yes”, but it’s a “yes” when it works for you. But then it may also be that you just don’t want to do it – which has been probably the biggest struggle – and then what I would say is, “You know what? That’s just not something that calls me. I’m really trying to focus my time in on the things that are really pulling and calling me, and I don’t get that from this project. But I would love to help you with something else in the future if I’m someone that you’d like to work with – because I really love the work that you do.” Or, “You know, you’re really somebody that I want to keep in my circle, but I’m really being careful what I do with my time. It has to align with the work that I’m doing.”

So you’re not saying “no”. You’re just saying “no” to that particular thing, and that it’s not in alignment with who you are – and people can’t argue with that. They can’t say, “What do you mean it’s not in line with who you are? Yeah, it is!” Right? So when you take it out of the engaging conversation – “Well, I’m not sure” – then they’re going to pull you in. But if you just say, “You know what? I’m completely not in alignment with that. Like it’s just not where I’m putting my time right now. So I can’t say ‘yes’ to this, but I would love to help you in the future.”

KIM: That is so huge, Marlo. For those listeners who are maybe just starting out, and are trying to build their business, and haven’t really developed their niche yet… I know from personal experience that there can be a conflict – because they’re wanting to bring in clients and money to build a rapport, and their reputation, and get more clients – but they don’t necessarily know their niche. So they’re having trouble being passionate and finding their purpose. Do you have any recommendations on how they can find that? So they know when to say “yes”, know when to say “no”?

MARLO ELLIS: Yeah, I think it’s very important to spend some time – before anybody starts any business – I think you need to sit down and figure out who you’re serving, right? And you can’t just jump into business and say, “Okay, I’m going to start coaching. And I’m going to coach everybody, and I’m going to coach everybody all the time, and I’m going to coach with everybody on how to do everything.” If you’re wanting to look to be a business coach, or a life coach, or somebody to help guide other people – you really need to sit down, and take some time, and map that out.

Who’re you serving? What problems are you are you solving for them? What’s keeping them up at night? What are the things that they need from you? How can you solve their problem? And then what that does is that really narrows down your scope of expertise.

And if we’re talking about people asking you for assistance in the workplace, you can say, “Well… stuffing envelopes isn’t in alignment with the work that I’m doing, which is really helping women find their passion and their purpose and step into their independence as a business owner. Those two things aren’t aligned.” Right? But if somebody wants you to do a podcast – like this, for example – where you’re actually sharing your message with other women, then absolutely. That’s in alignment with what you’re doing. Does that make sense?

KIM: Oh, that absolutely makes sense. And now you’ve got me curious about how you found this to be your passion.

MARLO: The work that I’m doing?

KIM: Yeah, exactly. Like, what was your journey that got you here?

MARLO ELLIS: Well, I was in – I’ve been an entrepreneur for many, many years. I was a teacher for 10 years, so I’ve always loved teaching and coaching in that aspect. But then I got into the fitness business – that’s kind of a long story – but I retired from teaching, and I went into full-time fitness.

And I had a situation go south in my personal relationships – and in my business – where I was sharing a business with a partner, who was also my partner in life. And we parted ways, and things got really ugly. And I had to literally step into my own power and decide whether I was going to be a victim or I was going to be victorious. And so I chose the victorious route, and I opened my gym in six weeks.

But in order for me to open a gym in six weeks with no financial backing, and with really no history of ever opening a brick-and-mortar, I had to step into my personal power. And that’s kind of where the whole “feminine badassery” piece came from.

And what happened then – that would have been 2012 – over the last four years was I was coaching women: transforming bodies and helping women get healthy, and to feel more grounded, and to feel better in the skin they’re in. But in that time, what I was really discovering was that part of the reason why people put on the extra weight, and why they get sedentary, and why they stop doing the things that they love is really more about what’s going on internally. And I started realizing that there was a massive demand for a safe place for women to share their stories and to find support.

And so May of last year, I closed my gym after three years, and I created my freedom coaching business. And I work specifically with women – and I work specifically with women who want more, who need to move through the darkness into the light. Women who understand that they have gifts that they need to share, but they for some reason not share them out yet – whether it’s through fear of rejection, or they’ve never had the support that they needed. Or maybe they didn’t see it before, but now they’ve had kind of a change in their life situation, and they need that support, and they need clarity.

And so then I help them step into that role and either just help them on the personal side, or I can also help them actually take the first steps in launching their business and creating their vision. And so what I did was I just duplicated what I did for myself, really. And so it’s easy, and it’s very – and you can hear when I talk, I’m very clear about who I help and what it is that I give to them – what I can bring to the table, right?

KIM: Right.

MARLO: Yeah.

KIM: Oh, my gosh. I wish I had known you in, like, 2010. I mean, I know it was before you started this portion of your business – but going from “victim” to “victorious”… That’s fabulous.

MARLO: Yeah, it was great. It takes lots of work, though – and I’m sure you know that as well.

KIM: Oh, absolutely.

MARLO ELLIS: Time, and energy, and lots of shifting and changing directions. It hasn’t been a straight road for me, by any means, but it’s been very rewarding – and I feel very confident that I can help women do those things because I did them for myself.

KIM: Right. Wow. So what do you see being the biggest struggles that your clients come in with?

MARLO: Confidence.

KIM: Right. I can totally see that.

MARLO ELLIS: Yeah, confidence would be the biggest issue – and it’s running rampant. It’s a massive problem with women, and unfortunately – we are born confident. We’re born strong, we’re born resilient, we’re born capable, we’re born powerful, we’re born empowered.

But in time, as you and I both know, lives are impacted by environments, and surroundings, and opinions of other people. And slowly – especially women, as little girls – their confidence is bit-by-bit, kind of yanked out from under them. And so there are women out there who are brought up in families that really instill confidence in them and tell them that they can do anything.

But that’s not the norm, and the reason I can say that is because the women that I work with – the majority of them have stories where somebody yanked their confidence out from under them at a very young age, and said, “You can’t do this. You’re not smart enough,” or, “You’re not as smart as the person next door,” or, “Are you sure you can do that? Because in the past, you’ve failed – so why would you try again?” That kind of stuff.

And so the women, by the time they’re in their 30s and 40s – and they’ve maybe gotten married, and they’ve had a few kids, and they’re not feeling great about themselves physically, and they don’t see the same person in the mirror – take that and multiply that lack of confidence by 10.

So really, the first piece is building back that confidence. And usually what I do is I challenge them to do things that they think they can’t do. And what happens through that is that they see that they are actually capable. So there’s a bit of a process, yeah, that they go through with me.

KIM: So I’m very fortunate. I grew up with parents who told my sisters and I that we could be anything that we wanted to be. They would just prefer that it was doing something legal. So I mean, they told us – if you want to be garbage women, go ahead. If it’s what you’re passionate about, do it. I mean, I remember where I was sitting when I heard that. And it wasn’t actually until later in life that that confidence was taken, and it did take some work. And actually, it was my introduction to the Law of Attraction that brought it all back around for full-circle. And that was huge.

MARLO: Right. Yeah.

KIM: And I know that you eat, sleep, and breathe positivity and believe strongly in the Law of Attraction. Can you talk about that a little bit?

MARLO ELLIS: Yeah. I do truly believe that what you put out and what you intend is what you get. And so that’s been – I grew up in a very similar childhood. It sounds like where I had incredible parents who supported me, and we had a very loving home, and there was a lot of positive language in my home. But like you said, as life happens, things change. And I really had to create for myself my own positive environment, and I had to draw things back into my life that were positive.

Part of that was really sitting in what was not positive. So those four or five years, I guess, that kind of were my massive shifting years – through the gym experience and through the relationship prior to that – I really allowed myself to sit in the darkness. Because I needed to know what I didn’t want in my life. And it was very clear to me that I didn’t want certain things.

And so then what I did was I took action, and I extracted the things that weren’t serving me anymore. As painful as it was, I knew that I would survive. And I started drawing in people that were positive and experiences that were positive. I almost changed my entire social circle. I changed what I read, I changed what I did with my time – I really stepped into what I knew was positive action.

It’s not rocket science, right? Like, all you have to do is watch people who have what you want, or are doing what you want to do – and watch them closely, and watch what their habits are, and watch where they put their time. And it was really easy for me to see that they were people who were really diving into social development. They were having conversations. They were going to conferences, they were reading they – they were living a different kind of life.

So I just started duplicating that in my own life, and I instantly – it was instant – drew in a massive circle of people who are incredible. And to this day, they’re very close. And I’ve continued to do that, and my circle just keeps getting larger and larger of all the right people. So it truly is about where you want to put your energy, and then, what your goal is to get out of it.

KIM: I love that. Yeah, and I know we met through a number of different Facebook groups, but I’m curious on how you treat social media. Because I know, for me, I generally don’t go on to my main feed page – the one that I see all my friends’ statuses – I don’t go on there very often. Because to be totally honest, there’s some feeds that tend to be a little bit negative, or people who post a little bit more negatively.

And I love the people – and I guess I could unfollow them if I really wanted it to, and not unfriend them. But generally, I don’t want to see what’s happening in the news – because I’ll hear about it if it’s important, right? And I’d just like to go to the groups where I see the most positivity and get motivation and inspiration.

So how do you handle social media so that you can stay in the mindset that you really want to be in?

MARLO ELLIS: Well, I actually use social media as my platform. It’s probably the number one platform for me, right now. And to get my message out there, Facebook has been a big, big piece of it. And I actually am very present on all of my Facebook profiles – so my personal profile, I’m very present on – and I am present because I want to have a positive impact on the people around me. And there have been so many people – countless people have come up to me randomly in coffee shops, or when I’ve been out at a restaurant, or when I’ve been shopping, or at a grocery store – and they’ll stop me and say, “Marlo!” Sometimes I know them, but I haven’t really had a relationship with them, or sometimes I don’t – and they’ll say, “You’re one of my favorite Facebook feeds to follow! Every morning, I get up and I’m excited to see what you’re going to say, and it’s always-”

And so actually, I use that personal profile as kind of a “love bubble”, and “Here’s a dose of feminine badassery for you.” And I’m very clear about who I am in my personal profile – because I am quite feminist, I would say, because anybody who is a woman who is interested in women’s rights is a feminist. And so I’ve been very clear about my movements to create a better life for women.

And so the people that are on my Facebook page are people who appreciate my message – men and women. I’m certainly not a men – I love men, and I have an incredible men in my life – but my particular work is focused in on women. And so I make that very clear.

But really, my Facebook profile is who I am, and it’s my brand. So it’s been easy for me – because if you look at my personal profile, and my public profile, and The Feminine Badass Society, you’re going to see the same Marlo showing up everywhere. And it’s very consistent, and it’s who I am. It makes my work easy. I would have a hard time differentiating myself between who I am in my Feminine Badass Society, and who I am Marlo Ellis “public figure”, and Marlo Ellis “personal page”.

And the people – I’m referring to what you mentioned about the negative feeds – I either unfollow or unfriend people, and I don’t have any problem doing that. And there was a time where I was very – I don’t know – troubled about who I was going to extract from my life because of the energy that they brought in. And then part of standing in my feminine badassery was just saying, “You? No. You? No. Yeah, you’re invited in. You? No.” And I have no bones about it.

And if somebody says to me, “Oh, I noticed you unfriended me on Facebook.” I’ll just say to them, “Well, you know what? Quite honestly, we don’t have a really – I don’t feel like you need to have access to my personal page. You’re more than welcome to be on my public page, but we don’t really have a relationship.” And they don’t argue with that.

Again, it’s saying “no” when you mean “no”, and “yes” when you mean “yes”. It’s about genuine authenticity, and really saying what you feel.

And I have had a lot of people criticize my work – especially when I was transitioning from a fitness professional into my freedom coaching. Not so much now. I really don’t get that. But when I was doing the transition, a lot of people who were connected to my gym were very critical of me.

And basically, what I did was one day I put up a post, and I just said, “This is the path that I’m taking. This is who I am. The gym has played a massive part in this journey. But it wasn’t the end, and either you choose to stay, or you choose to go. But if there’s any kind of negativity on my page, I’ll be removing you – because it’s not in alignment with my values.”

And people don’t mess with you. Like honestly, they don’t. If you put it out there – who you are – and you’re very clear about your value system, people will not challenge it. And if they do, I don’t challenge them back. I just say…

There’s this great quote by Lady Gaga – she says something like, “Clearly, that’s your opinion of me, and I’m not going to bother wasting my time trying to change it.” Amen, sister. Like, you can have your opinions, but I’m not going to waste my time trying to change your opinion of who I am. Doesn’t really matter to me.

KIM: Right. I love that. And I have to share that I celebrated my first hater on a Facebook ad, because – well, I mean they noticed me, and I wasn’t really – I didn’t mind their comment. I didn’t respond to it. But you know you’re doing something right when somebody is – I mean people are going to compliment you. Hopefully, you always get more appreciation for your work than you do disdain. But somebody – and I can’t remember who – said, “Celebrate your heaters, because most likely, they’re jealous of the success that you’re achieving.” How do you handle haters? Do you block them? Do you comment at all?

MARLO: I haven’t had any. To be honest with you-

KIM: Oh, that’s fabulous.

MARLO ELLIS: I haven’t had any. Now, that doesn’t mean that I don’t have haters – but they haven’t come onto my Facebook page and blasted me out, or said anything negative.

You know, but it’s also perspective, right? Like maybe I’ve seen somebody’s opinion of me, and it didn’t trigger me to consider them a “hater”. Maybe it just triggered me as somebody who either had a different opinion than I did, or somebody who actually needed help.

I just haven’t – I honestly haven’t had a situation where somebody has gone in and been so – where I consider them a “hater”. I’ve certainly had people come in and disagree with me, but that’s not a “hater”. That’s somebody who’s voicing their own opinion, and standing in their own power, and I always respect that.

But if the conversation was to get ugly or to go south, I just think that they’ve got issues. I don’t even consider that a “hater”. I think – I don’t really know what a “hater” is. Maybe I did have haters, and I just didn’t know it.

So I haven’t really had to deal with that, Kim, to be quite honest with you. But again, I’m very clear about who I am on my Facebook page, and I take people on face-first, and I get up in their grill if they’re challenging the work that I do, or whatever. So I guess I just don’t feel like I’ve had to do that, I guess is my point.

KIM: That’s so great. I remember seeing an ad for 90-Day Year – Todd Herman’s program – and he was getting responses from people who’ve said, “You know, it’s really easy to make millions of dollars a year when you’ve been raised with a silver spoon in your mouth.” Which is totally not the case for Todd Herman, and I mean – and the same can be said for Brendan Burchard: Neither of them was raised with a silver spoon in their mouth. So anybody who says otherwise – these men built success for themselves. But I mean, they’ve got those people who will comment in the feeds about…

And they’re totally uneducated, so maybe that’s another thing, too – when people are not educated about what you’re really doing and make assumptions. And maybe that was just my case. I don’t even remember what the comment was on my side.

MARLO ELLIS: And I think you’re right. I think that those are people who probably don’t know anything about Tom Herman’s work. I’ve done Todd Herman’s 90-Day Year – and I was in his beta group, and it was incredible program. But I’m guessing that the person who made that comment didn’t even know what the 90-Day Year consisted of and the amount of work that he puts into it.

So like you said: I think it’s more about just not having all the facts, and so I don’t get all worked up. I just kind of go, “Yeah, okay. Whatever.” I really don’t have time. I guess what it comes down to is, I don’t have time in my life, or in my world, or in my day to even address those people. Because the people that matter to me and the people that matter in my work are too busy trying to make their lives you know incredible.

KIM: A better place?

MARLO ELLIS: Yeah. And so they just – they don’t think in that realm. So I really don’t get those people much oxygen.

KIM: So speaking about your day, are there any rituals that you have every single day to help you live a more positive and productive life?

MARLO ELLIS: Yeah, I have – my mornings are very much a ritual – “ritualized”. I don’t know if that’s a word, but – “ritualistic?” I don’t know.

I get up every morning and I meditate, and I don’t do a big long meditation. I’d probably do about a 10-minute meditation in the morning. I do that before I do anything else, because it’s kind of my quiet time – and I can either do it lying in my bed, or I can do it sitting up looking out at the lake, or whatever. I always had a great breakfast and a coffee, and I give myself some downtime in my morning.

So usually for the first hour and a half of my day, it’s all about me. It’s all about checking in on my social media, having a conversation with my partner, taking my dogs for a walk. That’s a really big piece of who I am, and it’s one of the reasons why I could never do a nine-to-five job – because I really do enjoy my freedom to spend more time at home, to be very grounded in my work and the place that I feel the most comfortable doing it.

I read a lot. I connect with people everyday – I have to have at least one conversation with somebody a day. Whether it’s somebody that’s a client, or somebody who’s interested in my work, or just a really close friend. I really am in love with connection and with staying connected to humans, and so connection is a really big piece of my day.

There was a while there where I was doing a lot of work behind my computer, kind of building some programs and stuff. And I would say it was the most difficult time over the last year in my career where I really struggled. And when I did a quick analysis of it, it was really easy for me to see that was only because I was kind of isolating myself.

So I quickly moved away from that, and I don’t do that anymore. I’m I’ve actually decided to do a lot less work through programming/online stuff – and to really get out there and do the networking, and connecting, and the live stuff.

KIM: No, I’ve been through that same experience in the past year. I mean I “buckled down” – is that the word I’m looking for? – buckled down, and was really focused on producing a course I was about to launch. And I completely removed myself from all social media, and all the groups that I had built connections in and was really building relationships – and that was probably the hardest time for me in the past year, too.

And I know you are in the country, living in the country, working in the country – and I’m in the suburbs, not – I don’t have a big entrepreneur community right around here. And it’s when you lose that interaction with other people, you can feel really isolated and alone. And just – yeah. It can be tough.

MARLO ELLIS: Yeah. Absolutely. So you know, you have to just figure out what works for you – and I think it’s always shifting and changing. But because this year has been the year of growth for me in my business – as I’ve kind of stepped into the freedom coaching part of my career, I’ve had to be very critical of the time that I spend behind the computer and the time that I spend out. And when do I have the greatest results? When am I getting the results I want? And then just taking note of that.

KIM: Marlo, have you heard of The Miracle Morning by Hal Elrod?

MARLO: I have! Yes, but I haven’t done anything with it.

KIM: Well, today was actually my Day 1. So I got up, and I did my reading, and I did my meditation and my “affirmations of visualization”. (Hey, it’s “Positive Productivity”, not “perfection”, right?)

And I have a question about meditation for you – because as I was sitting here trying to meditate, it was so hard. I mean, I have what I call “chronic idea disorder”, where I constantly have ideas coming in, and my brain is rarely quiet. So do you run into that at all? Like when you’re meditating – having a quiet mind?

MARLO ELLIS: Absolutely. Absolutely, I do. And I have probably the same idea, which is – (Same idea? That’s funny.) I have the same problem, which is why I need meditation. And I’ve listened to a lot of people talk about meditation, about both the practice – and they’re not saying that you have “failed” at meditation if your mind isn’t completely quiet.

The whole point is the practice of attempting to be quiet and the practice of taking time and space – and it’s really about breathing, and about just being present in the moment, and grounding yourself. And so if you need to sweep those thoughts away every five seconds or every 10 seconds to get back into that mode of “just quiet”? That’s okay.

I mean, I’ve had – I’m getting better at meditating because I’ve been practicing it for a while, but I still have days where I really struggle, and I feel like I’m counting down the minutes until it’s over because I have things to do. And that’s very common.

So I think it’s important for people to understand that just taking the time to meditate is a win. Just sitting down for that time, and having your phone off, and not talking to anybody, not engaging with anything but your own body is a win. Because how often do we do that in a day, where we just sit? Never.

KIM: Oh, I never – I can’t say in the past 30-something years that I’ve ever done it, before today.

MARLO ELLIS: Exactly. So actually, you get better at it because you start getting more comfortable with that time, and you actually start looking forward to it. And then when you do that, then you can have a little bit more control over your thoughts. I use a broom – whenever I have thoughts that come into my head, I just sweep them away with a big push broom. It’s like a little guy, like a little Mario from the videogames – he comes in, and he pushes them out. And I literally have to physically sweep them away with – I don’t know if that makes any sense.

KIM: I love that. And I’m gonna have to borrow that from you.

MARLO ELLIS: Yeah, for sure. And when I sweep them away, there are clouds. So it’s like this little Mario, with a big push broom, sweeping clouds away. That’s exactly what it looks like when I’m pushing my busy my busy thoughts out – and I was taught that by somebody else. So I don’t even remember where I got that.

It might have been Deepak Chopra’s meditation series online with Oprah. They have – that’s when I first started doing meditation. I just downloaded it and bought it for like $9.99 or something, and he talked about that kind of stuff – about how to meditate and how to clear your mind.

And I’ve used that same tool all along, and it works – because it’s intentional clearing of your mind. I just sweep those thoughts out. And they come back? I sweep them out again. Some days, that guy is really busy, and other days – you know what? I don’t do at all.

KIM: That is so fabulous. And that’s – I mean, I have my headphones on right now, but I’m going to have to share that with my husband. He’s a video game developer, so he’s going to love what your little sweeper looks like.

MARLO: Yeah, yeah. That’s me.

KIM: I remember – and it was 2008 – I read “Eat, Pray, Love” (am I saying it in the right order?) by Elizabeth Gilbert.

MARLO: Yep, amazing book.

KIM: Oh, totally amazing, yeah. And I remember – and I don’t remember where she was – I mean, as I said: it was like eight years ago. But I remember just being in awe when she – well first, she said she had to be completely quiet, and no talking. Was that in India? And then she finally achieved that complete stillness and quietness, and it’s just blown my mind ever since, because I felt like I was actually doing it wrong – that I couldn’t get that stillness. So I’m glad to hear I’m not alone, and I’m definitely going to be using the sweeper in the future.

MARLO ELLIS: Awesome. I love it. Yeah – no, it’s totally helped me. And like I said, I do believe meditation gets – well, I do believe for sure that it gets easier over time. But you’re also going to find that it becomes something that you really crave in your day, and when you don’t do it, you notice that you haven’t done it – because you didn’t have that quiet time in your morning that really kind of sets your morning on a particular path. Like I can’t imagine getting out of – I don’t have kids – but I can think of women who jump out of bed at 7:15, and the kids are jumping on their bed, and they’re like, “Mom, breakfast!” And the day starts – that’s the start of their day.

KIM: Oh, you’re talking to one of them.

MARLO ELLIS: Right, exactly. But imagine if you got up 30 minutes earlier – before the kids woke up – and had complete silent time. And then when the kids came in, you were patient, you were grounded, you were awake, you’d already had your morning coffee – probably a lot more… What’s the word I’m looking for? I guess “patient”, which I already said, would be the word – where you just are like, “Hi, good morning.” And there’s just a different energy around you. Because that’s not how you woke up. You weren’t ripped out of bed and had kids somersaulting across the bed, or whatever, or puking, or whatever to do, right?

KIM: Actually, that – so I did wake up early this morning, and you’re totally right. Like I was – and I’m sort of tattletaling on my husband now – but that is how I woke up. And so when the kids woke up, I was able to handle it, but my husband did wake up to the kids screaming, and crying, and wanting breakfast, and this, and that – and a completely different mindset and frame of mind for both of us.

MARLO ELLIS: And so that’s a really big piece. And man, I can’t imagine what parents deal with. So I think that really quiet time in the morning, and then again the nighttime – the pre-bed ritual – is really powerful as well. And doing that before you go to bed-

KIM: So what is your pre-bed ritual?

MARLO ELLIS: I don’t meditate when I go to bed, but I have a bath every single night before I go to bed, and it’s my quiet time before I go to bed. It’s been a ritual since I was a little girl – because we didn’t have a shower in our house. We had a bathtub, so I had a bath every night. And it’s just been something that I have kind of “pulled through” into my adult life.

And I have a bath every night, and I turn the lights off, and I burn a candle, and it’s not usually very long – it’s usually maybe 15 minutes – but it’s my… And then I go right from there to bed, and everything just kind of washes away. I don’t bring my phone in there. I don’t do all of those things that are going to stress me out or cause me anxiety. I just go and have a bath and go to bed. So that’s my nighttime ritual.

KIM: That is so fabulous. I might have to adopt that, too.

MARLO ELLIS: Yeah, for sure. And you know, you have to have rules around it, right? So when I’m having a bath, nobody’s allowed to come in and out of the bathroom, or knock on the door – unless there’s an emergency. It’s just my time. My dogs aren’t allowed in there, nobody’s allowed to walk in – and so that’s just my quiet time. And I really get frustrated if that rule is broken, because it’s my meditation. It’s my quiet time where I can take all of the pieces of my day, and put them together, and set them down for the night.

KIM: That is so fabulous. Yeah, I generally – when I take a bath, I don’t even try until after the littles are in bed. Because they’re – I’ve got three that are three and younger, so trying to do it before they go to sleep would just be like shooting myself in the foot.

Well, Marlo – it has been absolutely fabulous chatting with you. And I’d love to give listeners, or tell listeners, where they can connect with you, and where they can find you online, and learn more, and possibly work with you in the future.

MARLO ELLIS: Yeah, so you can find me at – one of the easiest places to find me of course is on Facebook my all my profiles are pretty much wide open – you can friend me. I have a public profile which I really encourage people to go into. Of course, The Feminine Badass Society is my free private group for women who really want a little bit more feminine badassery in their life. It’s an incredible community, it’s growing quite rapidly – I love it. And also my website, MarloEllis.com – where you can find my speaker page, my events that are coming up, my blog, all of that stuff.

KIM: That is so great. And all of that will be in the speaker notes – or yeah, in the show notes.

MARLO ELLIS: Awesome. Great, thank you so much.

KIM: Thank you so much for being here, and for all the nuggets that you gave.